Mourners bury one of the last hostages released from Gaza as talks start for ceasefire future

JABALIYA: Before the war, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan was a festive time of increased worship, social gatherings and cheer for Fatima Al-Absi. Together with her husband, the resident of Jabaliya in Gaza said she used to do Ramadan shopping, visit relatives and head to the mosque for prayers.
But the Israel-Hamas war has shredded many of the familiar and cherished threads of Ramadan as Al-Absi once knew it: her husband and a son-in-law have been killed, her home was damaged and burnt and the mosque she attended during Ramadan destroyed, she said.
“Everything has changed,” she said on Saturday as her family observed the first day of Ramadan. “There’s no husband, no home, no proper food and no proper life.”
For Al-Absi and other Gaza residents, Ramadan started this year under a fragile ceasefire agreement that paused more than 15 months of a war that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and devastated the Gaza Strip. Compared to last Ramadan, many found relief in the truce — but there’s also worry and fear about what’s next and grief over the personal and collective losses, the raw wounds and the numerous scars left behind.
“I’ve lost a lot,” said the 57-year-old grandmother, who’s been reduced to eking out an existence amid the wreckage. “Life is difficult. May God grant us patience and strength,” she added.
Israel cut off all aid and other supplies to Gaza on Sunday to pressure Hamas to accept a new proposal to extend the first phase of the ceasefire. Hamas accused Israel of trying to derail the existing ceasefire agreement, but both sides stopped short of declaring the truce over.
“We’re scared because there’s no stability,” Al-Absi said and added that she’s praying for the war to end and that she can’t bear any more losses. She spoke before Israel announced the new proposal and the aid cutoff on Sunday.
Though Ramadan is still far from normal, some in the Gaza Strip said that, in some ways, it feels better than last year’s.
“We can’t predict what will happen next,” Amal Abu Sariyah, in Gaza City, said before the month’s start. “Yes, the country is destroyed and the situation is very bad, but the feeling that the shelling and the killing ... have stopped, makes you (feel) that this year is better than the last one.”
Overshadowed by war and displacement, last Ramadan was “very bad” for the Palestinian people, she said. The 2024 Ramadan in Gaza began with ceasefire talks then at a standstill, hunger worsening across the strip and no end in sight to the war.
The war was sparked by the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel in which Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages. Israel’s military offensive has killed over 48,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Vast areas of Gaza have been destroyed.
Under the ceasefire, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flooded back into northern Gaza. After initial relief and joy at returning to their homes — even if damaged or destroyed — they’ve been grappling with living amid the wreckage.
As Palestinians in the Gaza Strip prepared for Ramadan, shopping for essential household goods and food, some lamented harsh living conditions and economic hardships, but also said they rely on their faith in God to provide for them.
“I used to help people. ... Today, I can’t help myself,” said Nasser Shoueikh. “My situation, thank God, used to be better and I wasn’t in need for anything. ... We ask God to stand by us.”
For observant Muslims the world over, Ramadan is a time for fasting daily from dawn to sunset, increased worship, religious reflection, charity and good deeds. It often brings families and friends together in festive gatherings around meals to break their fast.
Elsewhere in the Gaza Strip, Fatima Barbakh, from the southern city of Khan Younis, said her Ramadan shopping was limited to the essentials.
“We can’t buy lanterns or decorations like we do every Ramadan,” she said.
Back in Jabaliya, Al-Absi bitterly recalled how she used to break her fast with her husband, how much she misses him and how she remembers him when she prays.
“We don’t want war,” she said. “We want peace and safety.”

GUHARZE: Iraqi Kurdish villagers, displaced by fighting between Turkish forces and Kurdish militants that has played out for years in northern Iraq, are finally allowing themselves to hope they will soon be able to go home.
Their hopes were raised after the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, on Saturday declared a ceasefire in the 40-year insurgency against the Turkish government, answering a call to disarm from earlier in the week by the group’s leader, Abdullah Ocalan, imprisoned in Turkiye since 1999.
The truce — if implemented — could not only be a turning point in neighboring Turkiye but could also bring much needed stability to the volatile region spanning the border between the two countries.
In northern Iraq, Turkish forces have repeatedly launched blistering offensives over the past years, pummeling PKK fighters who have been hiding out in sanctuaries in Iraq’s northern semi-autonomous Kurdish region, and have set up bases in the area. Scores of villages have been completely emptied of their residents.
A home left decades ago
Adil Tahir Qadir fled his village of Barchi, on Mount Matin in 1988, when Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein launched a brutal campaign against the area’s Kurdish population.
He now lives in a newly built village — also named Barchi, after the old one that was abandoned — about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) away, south of the mountain.
He used to go back to the old village every now and then to farm his land. But that stopped in 2015 when Turkish forces moved in and set up camp there in the fight against PKK, hitting the group with wave after wave of airstrikes.
Iraqi Kurdish farmers and their lands became collateral damage. The Turkish airstrikes and ground incursions targeting PKK positions displaced thousands of Iraqi Kurdish civilians, cutting off many from their land.
“Because of Turkish bombing, all of our farmlands and trees were burned,” Qadir said.
If peace comes, he will go back right away, he says. “We wish it will work so we can return.”
Fighting emptied out villages in Iraq
In the border area of Amedi in Iraq’s Dohuk province — once a thriving agricultural community — around 200 villages had been emptied of their residents by the fighting, according to a 2020 study by the regional Iraqi Kurdish government.
Small havens remained safe, like the new Barchi, with only about 150 houses and where villagers rely on sesame, walnuts and rice farming. But as the fighting dragged on, the conflict grew ever closer.
“There are many Turkish bases around this area,” said Salih Shino, who was also displaced to the new Barchi from Mount Matin.
“The bombings start every afternoon and intensify through the night,” he said. ”The bombs fall very close ... we can’t walk around at all.”
Airstrikes have hit Barchi’s water well and bombs have fallen near the village school, he said.
Najib Khalid Rashid, from the nearby village of Belava, says he also lives in fear. There are near-daily salvos of bombings, sometimes 40-50 times, that strike in surrounding areas.
“We can’t even take our sheep to graze or farm our lands in peace,” he said.
Ties to Kurdish brethren in Turkiye
Iraqi Kurdish villagers avoid talking about their views on the Kurdish insurgency in Turkiye and specifically the PKK, which has deep roots in the area. Turkiye and its Western allies, including the United States, consider the PKK a terrorist organization.
Still, Rashid went so far as to call for all Kurdish factions to put aside their differences and come together in the peace process.
“If there’s no unity, we will not achieve any results,” he said.
Ahmad Saadullah, in the village of Guharze, recalled a time when the region was economically self-sufficient.
“We used to live off our farming, livestock, and agriculture,” he said. “Back in the 1970s, all the hills on this mountain were full of vines and fig farms. We grew wheat, sesame, and rice. We ate everything from our farms.”
Over the past years, cut off from their farmland, the locals have been dependent on government aid and “unstable, seasonal jobs,” he said. “Today, we live with warplanes, drones, and bombings.”
Farooq Safar, another Guharze resident, recalled a drone strike that hit in his back yard a few months ago.
“It was late afternoon, we were having dinner, and suddenly all our windows exploded,” he said. “The whole village shook. We were lucky to survive.”
Like others, Safar’s hopes are sprinkled with skepticism — ceasefire attempts have failed in the past, he says, remembering similar peace pushes in 1993 and 2015.
“We hope this time will be different,” he said.